American conservative commentator Candace Owens is not backing down after being slammed for her reaction to seeing Harry Styles in a dress on the cover of the December issue of Vogue.
“Sorry I’m not sorry,” the 31-year-old author tweeted Monday morning.
On Saturday, Owens retweeted a link to a Vogue feature in which Styles talks about his gender-blurring fashion choices.
She sniffed: “There is no society that can survive without strong men. The East knows this. In the west, the steady feminization of our men at the same time that Marxism is being taught to our children is not a coincidence. It is an outright attack.
“Bring back manly men.”
While she got plenty of support on Twitter, others defend Styles’ right to express himself anyway he wants.
“It's just a man in a dress Candace,” read one reply. Actress Olivia Wilde responded: “You’re pathetic.”
Jonah Marais of Why Don't We opined that Styles "is doing everything right." He tweeted: "So funny to see these conservative people getting so heated because he's pushing gender norms in the dopest way. MEN AND WOMEN CAN DRESS HOWEVER THEY WANT. it's 2020. shut up, your small mindedness is showing."
Owens doubled down on Monday.
“Since I’m trending I’d like to clarify what I meant when I said ‘bring back manly men.’ I meant: Bring back manly men,” she tweeted. “Terms like ‘toxic masculinity’ were created by toxic females. Real women don’t do fake feminism. Sorry I’m not sorry.”
She also clapped back at people sending her photos of male artists like Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain posing in dresses.
“Mining pictures on the internet of men in dresses is not going to suddenly make me attracted to men in dresses,” Owens wrote. “I’m impervious to woke culture. Showing me 50 examples of something won’t make it any less stupid.”
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who famously went at Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion over "WAP," tweeted his support for Owens.
"Anyone who pretends that it is not a referendum on masculinity for men to don floofy dresses is treating you as a full-on idiot," he wrote. "Masculinity and femininity exist. Outward indicators of masculinity and femininity exist in nearly every human culture. Boys are taught to be more masculine in virtually every human culture because the role of men is not always the same as the role of women.
"The Left knows this, of course. The POINT of Styles doing this photo shoot is to feminize masculinity. Otherwise why would it be headline-worthy for Styles to don a dress?"
Shapiro added: "Pretending that men dressing like women does not feminize men is ridiculous, particularly coming from the same people who are celebrating Styles BECAUSE he is feminizing masculinity."
Left: "Hey, look how important and magical it is that Harry Styles is wearing a dress! He's subversively undermining masculinity!"
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 16, 2020
Right: "Yes, men wearing dresses does undermine masculinity, and that's bad."
Left: "HOW DARE YOU SAY MEN WEARING DRESSES UNDERMINES MASCULINITY?!"
Styles told Vogue he is inspired by artists like Prince, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury and Elton John. “They’re such showmen,” he said. “As a kid it was completely mind-blowing. Now I’ll put on something that feels really flamboyant, and I don’t feel crazy wearing it. If you get something that you feel amazing in, it’s like a superhero outfit. Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with.
“What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away. When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play.”
Styles added: “I’ll go in shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at the women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing. It’s like anything—anytime you’re putting barriers up in your own life, you’re just limiting yourself.”